Eye Pressure

Working with my medical team, I have recorded tens of thousands of eye pressure measurements with a variety of tonometers under a variety of conditions. This blog post describes a recent comparison we performed between the Reichert AT555 (a non-contact tonometer or NCT) we use for most eye pressure measurements and Goldman applanation tonometry (GAT) performed by one of the doctors on my medical team. I believe our data indicates that the Reichert AT555 tonometer does an excellent job.

NOTE: This post was made in late 2006. The comments following it were made in early 2007. In the time that has passed since these initial intraocular pressure observations were made (see comments below), we have come to understand this situation much, much better. This thread is interesting for background information, but please see the more recent posts on FitEyes.com if you want to really understand the relationship between stress, breathing, meditation and eye pressure. I have been in contact with a number of people who have tonometers and who have replicated some of these observations, and the patterns continue to hold. Basically, this seems to apply to all glaucoma patients. However, there are individual differences, especially among meditators and non-meditators.

This abstract simply triggers a discussion in the comments below. All the interesting info is in the comments.

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As I understand this study, the researchers had subjects with primary open angle glaucoma (gluacoma simplex) breath through their right nostril only (by closing off their left nostril). Breathing through one nostril while closing the other with the fingers is a common pranayama (yogic breathing) exercise. However, normal pranayama usually alternates the open nostrils with the aim of creating balance in the physiology.

Today I compared several eye pressure measurements on the basis of a normal measurement vs. a measurement after 1-2 minutes of relaxed breathing. I wanted to see if my eye pressure is lower when I do simple deep breathing as a form of relaxation.